


Things are getting desperate

by JustLikeAPapercut



Category: Major Crimes, The Closer
Genre: AU, F/F, Maybe it's not love, like just the worst, not quite friends, really unreliable narrators, slightly dented people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:42:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24007549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustLikeAPapercut/pseuds/JustLikeAPapercut
Summary: Five times they get together.
Relationships: Brenda Leigh Johnson/Sharon Raydor
Comments: 14
Kudos: 126





	Things are getting desperate

* * *

_  
t_ _hings are getting desperate_ _  
__when all the boys can't be men_ _  
__everybody knows, I'm her friend_ _  
__everybody knows, I'm her man_

\- Tori Amos, "Raspberry Swirl"

* * *

1.

Everyone’s worried about what kind of Chief of Police Brenda will make, and in her better moments, this is something that Brenda herself understands. She’s spent most of her career throwing rocks at the castle walls and now she’s sitting on the throne. 

She thinks it’ll allay some fears if she picks someone more by the book to lead her staff, a rule follower, and so that’s how she decides on Raydor. Raydor is articulate, rule oriented, and has a spotless record. The position is also highly visible, so Brenda thinks it the perfect bonus that Sharon is so attractive. 

“I can put together a list of people who are more qualified than I am,” Sharon says, clearly flabbergasted by the offer.

“But they won’t have your cheekbones,” Brenda says over her glasses. “Besides, you’ll tell me the truth and I like that, even when I don’t. So how ‘bout you just take a day to think about it, alright?” 

Brenda hopes she says yes because she knows Sharon can be the angel on her shoulder - the persistent, hyper-focused, nagging angel who will keep on Brenda to do the right thing. It’ll be good for Brenda, good for the city, and an excellent boost to Sharon’s presently stalled career. 

Sharon says yes, that of course she’d be thrilled to do it, and from there on everything gets surprisingly hard. People are suspicious of Brenda for formerly flouting the rules but they hate Sharon too, maybe hate Sharon more, for having followed the rules so closely. 

“I can resign,” Sharon says finally, when they’re drinking wine in her condo. It’s been an eighteen-hour day and the next will be the same, the male brass of the greater LA metroplex all conspiring to continuously bust Brenda’s balls. 

“No,” Brenda says, heated now. “So help me, no, not ever. Not unless you genuinely want that later down the line.” 

It’s rarely easy and it’s never fair, and Brenda’s whole tenure is marred by bureaucratic infighting over things that should have been easy to sell. But Sharon Raydor remains until the last day, when Brenda bows out in favor of another chief - someone younger and male, who has a better shot of getting things done. And well, if nothing else, the fact that Brenda stuck to her guns is a point of pride, a contentment she will look back on, long into retirement, when she stares over the dinner table in the home she now shares with Sharon. 

2.

Brenda has cursed Sharon Raydor’s name more times than she can count - has wished for the Captain to break every one of her perfectly manicured nails, snap her favorite pair of heels, contract a nasty case of bronchitis that robs her of a voice for weeks. But never, not once, did Brenda wish for the head of FID to drop to the floor of Major Crimes’ murder room, pale and unresponsive. 

The guys are of little help once Raydor goes down, but they can follow directions well enough. Provenza calls 911 while Flynn stands beside him, pacing and muttering, and Brenda kneels on the ground, listening to the Captain’s labored breath. 

It’s a Wednesday afternoon and they’d just rolled up a case, so Brenda stands outside on the sidewalk, watching the EMTs load Radyor into the ambulance. 

Brenda knows herself to be many things (a coward, a liar, and stubborn as all get out), but she isn’t so horrible as to let a fellow officer go alone to the hospital. She grabs all of her stuff out of her office. Tells Gabriel that if he needs her signature for paperwork, she’ll be at Saint Catherine’s. 

Apparently the woman doesn’t have any family in town; her son and parents are upstate, her daughter in New York. There’s allegedly a husband somewhere, but they’re separated and Brenda knows enough about ex-husbands to tell the people in FID not to track him down. Brenda sits in the ER waiting room, feeling wretched and guilty for all the times she’d wished to never see the Captain’s face again. 

It’s a heart attack, a bad one, and Brenda listens and nods when the doctor comes out to see her. Takes notes on the little notepad she keeps in her purse, because she wants to remember things exactly as the doctor says them. It’s late, hours later, when Brenda gets a call on her cell phone from a New York number. She’s not sure what Emily Raydor needs, but she listens as the young woman tries to get her words out through hiccuped sobs. 

“I’ll be there soon,” she promises, “I just have to get the m-money for a flight first.” 

Brenda can’t do a lot to help Sharon right now, but she can solve this one small problem. She tells Emily to text her a picture of her driver’s license and that she’ll call her back with flight details. 

“You _are_ Brenda Johnson, right?” Emily asks before they hang up. Brenda doesn’t get offended by the girl’s incredulity here because, honestly, how could she. 

It’s after one o’clock when Brenda wakes up Fritz by calling his phone three times. “Are you coming home?” he demands. Sounds tired and angry, and every bit the person she lives with but doesn’t know anymore. 

“The woman is unconscious and her kids won’t be here til tomorrow,” Brenda snaps. “And I can’t see well enough on this phone, so I need you to book a flight with my credit card.” 

If he has any thoughts about the nine-hundred-dollar ticket, he keeps them to himself. And Brenda should go home to him now, she should, but she thinks about Sharon sitting next to her momma at Christmas, being so nice even though she didn’t have to, and no, Brenda decides she’ll stay right here. 

Sharon’s son, Ricky, apparently drives all night because he gets there first thing in the morning. 

“She’s still in surgery,” Brenda tells him. She’s been texting him updates every hour. “Let me go get someone who can talk to you.” 

Emily’s flight lands in two hours. “Can you pick her up?” Ricky asks. He’s already promised to pay Brenda back for the flight, bemoaning the fact that his sister’s successful ballet career still leaves her flat broke. 

“Sure,” Brenda says, because she’s so tired she’s on autopilot. She probably needs to call her squad and let them know she’s not coming in at all today. 

“I’m sorry,” Ricky says. “I just don’t want to leave in case something happens.”

“You stay right here,” Brenda says, squeezing his hand. He has long, tapered fingers, like his mother. “I’ll go get your sister.” 

LAX isn’t any more hellacious than usual and Brenda only gets lost twice on the way there. She’s in a police car, so it’s pretty easy to find a place to idle when she spots Emily Raydor and her little green suitcase. Emily is beautiful and carries herself the way her mother does, so Brenda isn’t prepared for the young woman to throw herself in Brenda’s arms, sobbing. 

“Shh now,” Brenda says, patting Emily’s back awkwardly. She tries to summon the words her momma would use, but these things don’t come nearly as easy to her. 

They stop at Starbucks on the way, Emily seeming a little steadier after some caffeine. 

“I don’t mean to be rude,” she tells Brenda. “But I thought you guys hated each other.” 

“Your momma’s a hard woman to hate,” Brenda says, flipping on her turn signal. She doesn’t know at the moment whether or not it’s actually a lie. 

Sharon’s surgery goes well, but she’s on medical leave for a while, no haunting of Brenda’s murder room anytime soon. It takes about two days for Brenda to miss the woman and another week for her to admit it to herself. 

“I wasn’t expecting guests,” Sharon says, clutching her robe closed when Brenda turns up at her door. It’s a rude thing to do, just turning up like this, but if Brenda had made herself call first she probably would have abandoned the idea altogether. 

“I’m sorry to surprise you,” Brenda says, handing her the bunch of pink flowers she brought. Feels silly and shortsighted now. “You probably need your rest, so I’ll just scoot out of -”

“No!” Sharon blurts loudly. Stops for a moment before she says, in a more reasonable volume, “no, please come in, Chief Johnson.”

“I think you can call me Brenda,” she says, following Sharon into her condo. 

“Hmm,” Sharon hums thoughtfully, “perhaps give me a bit to get used to that.” 

Sharon pulls a glass vase out of a cabinet and fills it up with water. The stems should really be cut at angle before they’re dropped in, and Brenda thinks Sharon is exactly that kind of woman to know that, so she watches with concern as Sharon puts the flowers straight into the vase, already looking flattened by the effort. 

“Why don’t you sit down a spell,” Brenda says. “You have a pair of scissors anywhere?” 

Sharon lowers herself on the couch without the grace she usually moves with, angles her body so she can watch as Brenda holds the flower stems under running water, clipping at them with the red pair of scissors she’s borrowed from Sharon’s butcher block. 

“If you’ll give me a moment to find my checkbook,” Sharon says here, “I’ll compensate you for my daughter’s flight.”

“Your son already did that,” Brenda lies. Slides the flowers back into the vase and fans them out. 

“Actually,” Sharon clears her throat. “Ricky said he tried to pay you and you refused to take his money.” 

“Did he now,” Brenda dodges. “Where do you want these?” 

“Coffee table,” Sharon says. 

Brenda sets them in the center, pushing aside a magazine, and then, because she doesn’t know what else to do, lowers herself on the side of the couch farthest from Sharon. 

“How are you feelin’?” Brenda asks, staring at the flowers. She hadn’t gone with the white ones she originally picked out because she thought they looked too somber, too much like something that belonged at a funeral, but now she’s worried that the pink ones clash with Sharon’s walls. 

“Tired,” Sharon admits. “It’s rather odd, not going to work.”

“I can imagine,” Brenda says. 

“Chief,” Sharon says, then stops and starts over. “Brenda. Thank you for staying with my kids until my father got into town. Emily said you were at the hospital for more than twenty-four hours.” 

“It was no trouble,” Brenda says, surprised to realize it’s the truth. Says, almost to herself, “I can only imagine how scared I’d be if something happened to my momma.” 

The day they lower Brenda’s momma into the ground, Brenda starts crying as soon as she wakes up and the tears don’t stop. She sobs, big shuddering gasps, in the shower and then cries quietly while Sharon attempts to do her makeup. Sniffles and hiccups away when Sharon presses her into the car and drives her to the service. 

Ricky apparently flew down for the funeral and Brenda starts crying all over again when she sees him, her brothers soothing and hugging until Sharon squeezes between them, taking Brenda’s hand. 

“Let’s drink some water, honey,” Sharon says, handing her a glass. “Just a few sips.” 

Brenda gulps a little bit down, but she’s crying so hard again she almost drops the glass, and Sharon takes it from her trembling hand. Sharon passes it off to someone Brenda can’t see, because her vision is blurry and everything hurts, hurts in a new and violent way that feels like someone is stabbing her each time she breathes. 

Her brothers wanted her to speak at the funeral, but she can’t, there’s no way, and it’s Sharon who takes charge here, talking to people and giving directions. Hugging Charlie, who looks small and frightened, standing a few feet away and watching Brenda breakdown. 

“I should be at the house,” Brenda says, when Sharon points her car toward her condo. There are still tears leaking out of Brenda’s eyes, but Brenda doesn’t know how, she shouldn’t have anything left. “There are so many people to thank.” 

“Your brothers can do it,” Sharon says firmly. “You’ve had enough for the day.” 

Sharon puts Brenda in her own bedroom, not the guest room Brenda used to hide out in before she got up the nerve to file for her second divorce. She takes Brenda’s shoes off like she’s a small child and then gently unzips her dress. 

“That’s a good girl,” Sharon murmurs, when Brenda manages to finally step out of it. 

She folds herself into Sharon’s bed and feels the blankets being pulled over her, gentle fingers pulling at the bobby pins in her hair. 

“I love you,” Brenda says, quietly crying into Sharon’s pillow. She really does and she has for a while, but everything still hurts and she thinks maybe if she says this one thing out loud, it might hurt a little less. 

“I love you, too,” Sharon says. “But I don’t want to talk about this on the day you said goodbye to your mother.”

Brenda nods weakly here, relieved when Sharon crawls in beside her and pulls her close. Brenda’s flushed face is tucked in Sharon’s neck, the pulse there steady and strong in Brenda’s ear.

3.

Brenda looks over the personnel files with a glass of mediocre hotel wine in her hand. Apparently, her new division is top-heavy: three detectives, two lieutenants, and of all things, a captain. For the life of her, Brenda can’t figure out why Sharon Raydor isn’t heading her own division. Raydor’s file is gleaming, full of commendations, and she should have been a shoe-in for an internal promotion back in FID. 

Brenda does more poking around and finds out that the current head of FID is someone named Winnie Davis. It looks like Raydor put in for a transfer the same week her new boss was named, taking a slot in Brenda’s squad that would have otherwise gone to a Lieutenant Flynn, who was instead yanked over to Vice. 

“Politics and old grudges,” Brenda sighs, rubbing her forehead. She’s never been very good at this part of the job.

Maybe it’s sour grapes that Raydor transferred, since Raydor probably put in for the job herself and was passed over. But somehow, this explanation doesn’t sit well with Brenda, not given Raydor’s record and the fact that she’s a woman. Female cops get used to being passed over and only thick skinned ones even make it to lieutenant.

Raydor is the easiest to work with at first, if only because she’s the only one who doesn’t hate Brenda on sight. But then Brenda slowly wins over the rest of the squad and Sharon becomes the trouble spot, continually reminding Brenda of rules and regulations, always staying just this side of insubordination. It’s far from an easy relationship, but Brenda realizes that Will meant for Raydor to be a thorn in her side, and she absolutely refuses to give him the satisfaction of being right. She pulls Raydor in closer rather than keeping her at arms’ length. Allows her a platform, in the privacy of Brenda’s office, to regularly express her reservations. 

“Out with it already, Captain,” Brenda sighs, when they’re driving to a scene. Her whole squad just found out, courtesy of Will’s next ex-wife, that Brenda once had an affair with him, and she realizes now that it’s Raydor’s approbation she fears the most. 

“I just don’t understand how someone like you could ever be interested in someone like him,” Raydor admits. Which is far kinder than Brenda expected from a woman who goes to mass every week. 

“Don’t you ever just get lonely, Sharon?” Brenda asks. Sighs, squinting at the long line of squad cars stretched out in front of Griffith Park. 

“Oh, yes,” Raydor says, slowing down and pulling over. She pronounces the words with such solemness, Brenda is desperate to know what lies behind them.

Sometimes, Brenda wonders what life would be like if Sharon hadn’t been passed over for that promotion in FID. She thinks maybe David Gabriel would have become her shadow in Sharon’s place. He’s young and eager to learn, and Brenda knows it would be tempting to have a right-hand man who doesn’t push back. No way Gabriel would have ignored Brenda’s orders when they pulled into Turrell Baylor’s neighborhood, gritting out the words, “Brenda, _no,_ we are not doing this,” and restarting the car. 

No, that would have been a mistake that Brenda would have worn, blood on her hands. 

It’s the personal side of things that Brenda can’t fathom. She thinks that if she didn’t have Sharon to have dinner with or text on the rare day off, then maybe she would have broken down and given dating another try. Might have even taken Fritz Howard up on his many offers to take her out to dinner again. But this line of thought is worse, more depressing, because she doesn’t want to think about the possibility of having fallen into another relationship that didn’t fit, just because she was lonely. 

It’s been six years of Brenda and Sharon working side by side when Winnie Davis finally gets the axe. If Sharon takes the job in FID, it will mean a promotion to Commander, and it’s high time - not nearly as much as Sharon deserves, but a fine start. 

“Part of me thinks Pope is doing this to fuck you over,” Sharon says sadly, and Brenda doesn’t reply here that yes, he absolutely is. Sharon made Brenda stronger rather than destabilizing her, and Will is weaponizing this against Brenda now - a harpoon launched into the soft flesh of her side. 

“Maybe,” Brenda says. “But you’re still takin’ it when they give it to you. You should have gotten that job the first time and everyone knows it.” 

They’re at Brenda’s house, making dinner and drinking wine. Well, Sharon is making them dinner and Brenda is pouring the wine, which is usually how this goes. If Sharon minds the unkind rumors and snide comments that occasionally circulate about their friendship, she’s never let on as much. 

“I don’t want to leave Major Crimes,” Sharon says later, when they’re washing dishes. “I like the work I do here.” 

“You can do good work in FID,” Brenda says. “Important work.” She puts a pot back where it lives on a hanging rack, Sharon watching without comment as Brenda has to get up on her very tippy toes to reach. “And it might be nice to go to work without seeing so many dead kids.” 

It’s this argument that wins out, and Brenda knew it would. Sharon disappears from her work day, but not from her personal life. 

“Oh, I thought -” Sharon says, when she pulls back from Brenda. They just finished their normal dinner routine, but this time it ended with Sharon pressing her lips to Brenda’s and Brenda froze up. “I’m sorry,” Sharon backs away, obviously panicked now, and Brenda can honestly say that no, she never considered kissing Sharon until this moment.

“Oh no you don’t,” Brenda says, grabbing Sharon by the waist before she can flee right out the door. She pushes into Sharon until they’re against a wall, Sharon’s hands tight on Brenda’s shoulders. “Now, let’s try that again.”

It’s an odd and wonderful sensation to feel Sharon’s tongue against her own, but Brenda’s always been good with change. Just ask anyone. 

4.

It’s an FID crime scene, so it’s Sharon who stands outside of Brenda Johnson’s house the night that the Deputy Chief shoots Philip Stroh dead. She doesn’t want Brenda to know that Rusty Beck didn’t make it, had simply lost too much blood by the time they got him to the hospital, but of course someone tells her before Sharon can stop them, and it’s Sharon who holds Brenda’s shaking body up when her knees give out. 

God help her, Sharon doesn’t care about her reporting cycle or how she’ll write up Stroh’s death. She just wanted Brenda to find out in a less traumatizing way -for Sharon to be to tell her when she wasn’t already an open wound. 

“Coffee,” Sharon barks at someone, the detective scampering away, and Sharon pushes Brenda’s thick blond hair back out of her face, blood that isn’t Brenda’s own still smeared across her delicate jaw. “Just breathe,” she says, as Brenda shakes. She’d worry less if Brenda were actually crying, but this looks an awful lot like her body’s going into shock. 

It’s two weeks later that Brenda shows up in FID in casual clothes. She’s on Sharon’s calendar, but the Chief is still on personal leave and Sharon has no idea what this is about. 

“I’m leavin’ the LAPD,” Brenda tells her, and Sharon stares at her. “I haven’t told Will yet, but I’m makin’ it official on Monday and I wanted you to know.” 

Brenda doesn’t hold herself the way she usually does, is slouched down in her chair like she’s at home, watching television. Sharon wonders here if this is what Brenda looks like without her protective shell - her outer layer ripped clean off in a deluge of death and trauma. 

“That will be a grave loss to the LAPD,” Sharon says, surprised here that she feels the urge to beg Brenda to stay. Not that she will. “How can I help?” 

“I think you should take over Major Crimes,” Brenda says. “I’m willin’ to push hard for it, but I didn’t want to blindside you.” 

“Me,” Sharon says, dumbfounded here. 

“Yeah,” Brenda breathes out, shaky now. “It should be you.” 

Will might have simply given the job to Sharon if it was his own idea, but he doesn’t like Brenda trying to shove someone down his throat. Brenda is tricky, more politically savvy than Sharon could have ever imagined, and she has a giant stack of favors that she calls in from every division. Brenda might not be by the book, but that means she knows where everyone else’s bodies are buried, has far more intel than Sharon ever could have imagined. It will take tremendous political capital for Will to fight the tide now running in Sharon's favor if he wants to name someone else, and they both know that he won’t want to spend it, not when he’s running so low. 

It occurs to Sharon that Brenda could have made Chief of Police, if only the woman had given that the same level of effort she’s now affording to Sharon. But Sharon tells herself it’s a pointless thing to be mad about that, even as she angrily cleans some grout in her bathroom for the third time. 

Sharon gets the job but not the promotion to Commander, because Will Pope is a petty bastard of a man. She falls into the new work and a new friendship with Brenda, both processes a little graceless and stumbling. Starting the affair with Brenda is easier though, far easier than any sin should properly be. 

“I keep wonderin’ what Rusty Beck might have become," Brenda says one afternoon, when they’re naked and pressed together. "If the world had only given him a chance."

It’s a hard thing to think about because Sharon is still deeply haunted by the memory of Morales talking to her over Beck’s pale, naked body. It was a senseless death and he was so young, but Sharon still thinks the memory hurts more than it rightfully ought to. She can’t explain the phantom pain she gets when she comes home to her empty condo and feels as though something is fundamentally wrong. A nagging, persistent feeling in her chest, like something has happened to one of her kids. But then she calls them and they’re both just fine, always fine. 

“I don’t know,” Sharon says, squeezing Brenda’s hand. They share their bodies and more and more, they share their lives, but there are things they don’t talk about and Sharon thinks it will probably always be like this. 

5.

The world is an unjust place and Sharon knows this, but that doesn’t mean she can’t be pissed as hell when she has to sell her condo in order to divorce Jack-the-asshole-Raydor. It turns out that twenty years of retirement savings and equity is still more than thirteen years of back child support for two kids, and it takes a full month of driving to work with white, clenched fingers before she feels like she’s not in danger of ramming her car into a government building. 

Still, selling her condo is better than cashing in all of retirement savings, and if she’s honest with herself, she feels like her life has outgrown the place anyway. She’ll end up with more than enough for a down payment on a new one, even after she throws a pile of money at Jack to get the hell out of her and Rusty's lives. She just isn't sure she wants to buy something right away.

Julio or someone else from the squad must say something to Brenda Johnson, because two weeks after Sharon puts her condo on the market, she gets an email from Brenda, offering to rent out part of her home. It’s an odd thing - a strange, uncomfortable offer - and Sharon thinks she’ll just ignore the email all together, because honestly what could her response possibly say. Brenda and Fritz Howard divorced a few months ago, and Sharon privately thinks that Brenda is better off, but she has no idea why the woman is renting out rooms in her home to make ends meet. Last she heard, Brenda was bored with her job at the DA’s and had started doing private consulting on the side, which should be bringing in great heaps of money. 

“You should at least take a look at Brenda’s house,” Andrea says one afternoon, out of nowhere. So maybe Andrea is how Brenda found out about Sharon’s divorce and the ensuing mess. “It’s a gorgeous house - a house I would sell my soul for.” 

“Really,” Sharon says here, intrigued, and Andrea only nods. Gathers her things into her briefcase and heads out of Sharon’s office. 

Sharon isn’t going to accept Brenda’s proposal, but she is curious about the house now. She emails Brenda back, setting up a time to meet. She won’t tell Rusty because really there’s nothing to tell, she’s just ogling some real estate. 

The house is in Sherman Oaks, on a quiet, well manicured street. Sharon can tell when she pulls up that it’s big - far too big for a married couple with no children, but then, some people view real estate as primarily an investment. She’d guess that it was built in the forties, maybe the fifties, but it has all the hallmarks of a flip, right down to the automatic driveway gate and outdoor fire pit. 

“Right on time,” Brenda says, when she opens the door. She’s in jeans and bare feet, and Sharon is struck by how small the woman is. In her head, Brenda Johnson is bigger than life, but Sharon knows that memories are unreliable, and the woman standing in front of her with pink toenails and a yellow capped sleeve top is the actuality, not the myth. 

“Nice to see you,” Sharon says. She wishes she’d thought to bring something, a bottle of wine maybe, but it hadn’t felt like a social call when she set it up and now it feels much too casual to be business. 

“You too,” Brenda smiles. “I have some wine if you’d like, but you wanna poke around first?” 

Sharon should come clean here, tell Brenda that she isn’t interested in renting from her and only came out of selfish curiosity. But to do so would be absolutely mortifying and so Sharon does one more selfish thing, going along. 

“Sure,” she nods. “It’s already quite lovely.” 

“To tell you the truth,” Brenda says, disarmingly at ease, hands in her pockets. “Fritz was the one who liked this house and I’m… not real keen on it.” 

Sharon isn’t sure why, because Andrea’s right, a person could sell her soul for this house. It’s all wood floors with an open floor plan and top of the line appliances. It has a modern look that manages to feel airy rather than sterile.

“Brenda,” Sharon says finally. “It’s gorgeous. What don’t you like about it?” 

“Oh, it’s fine,” Brenda says, sounding embarrassed. “I just never know why people want a house built in the forties if they’re gonna erase all the things that made it charmin’ to begin with.” 

Brenda points out the master, which sits empty now and would be Sharon’s. It’s twice the size of Sharon’s current bedroom and the bathroom has a jacuzzi tub and a huge vanity. Rusty could have the room next to it or else the one down the hall, but either would be an upgrade for him, and Sharon starts to wonder why on earth Brenda is living out of the bedroom on the other side of the house. 

“It has the best light,” Brenda says, sounding cheerful. But Sharon knows it’s hard to wake up alone in the same room you used to wake up not alone in, so she nods here as if good light makes all the sense in the world. 

Brenda invites her to sit in the living room and hands her a nice glass of wine. They chat about Rusty and eventually their respective divorces. Brenda is uncharacteristically diplomatic about Fritz but grows heated when Sharon brings up Jack. 

“If you ever want that man’s body dropped into a ditch,” Brenda says, “you just say the word.” 

“Very tempting,” Sharon admits. She stares at Brenda Johnson over her wine glass and thinks that she came here expecting one person but is meeting someone else, someone who feels new to her.

They finally get around to business, and Sharon thinks she’ll have an easy out here. This house must cost three times what Sharon’s condo is worth, and whatever Brenda wants, it's no doubt too steep. 

“What?” Sharon gapes, when Brenda names an amount. 

“I can go down,” Brenda says quickly, looking alarmed. “If the price is a problem, I can go down.” 

“No,” Sharon manages. “No, it’s - Brenda, you should really be asking for way more than that.” Like maybe triple, Sharon thinks. 

“Oh, that’s silly,” Brenda pulls a face. “I’m not rentin’ you the whole house - I’d still be livin’ here.” 

Sharon takes a hard pause here, because she’s very confused as to why Brenda would rent out rooms but not want to make a real profit out of it. If she were someone else, she might think it was a pity offer. But Brenda doesn’t seem the type to do pity and anyway, they haven’t seen each for more than two years. 

“I don’t really cook,” Brenda says now. “So you’d have the run of the kitchen. And I wouldn’t hear a bomb go off back in that back bedroom, so noise at all hours won’t be a problem. Rusty can hang out by the pool as much he wants.”

“There’s a pool?” 

There is, and it’s lovely. Small with beautiful tile work and adorable little chairs around it. 

“You ain’t allergic to cats are you?” Brenda asks suddenly. “Joel, my kitty, is probably hidin’. But he’s an indoor cat.”

Sharon could lie here and say that yes, she’s terribly allergic. But it doesn’t occur to her until later, and Brenda is being so incredibly kind - so uncharacteristically, shockingly generous - Sharon wouldn't have it in her anyway. 

“I need some time to think,” she tells Brenda. And God help her, but she means it. She’s actually thinking about this. “I also need to talk to Rusty about how he’d feel about it.” 

“Of course,” Brenda says, dipping her toes in the pool here. “Y’all feel free to come use the pool either way. It’d be nice to see the two of you.” 

Sharon thinks about that house the entire drive home. Decides she must be going crazy, because she’s actually considering living under the same room as Brenda Leigh Johnson. 

She tells Rusty and he has pretty much the same reaction; he thinks Sharon is crazy, has maybe suffered a head injury she forgot to tell him about. But then he sees the house, walks around the pool, catches up with Brenda in what is a surprisingly pleasant exchange, and when they get back in the car, he says, “I’m okay with it if you are.” 

“Does she seem different to you?’ Sharon asks, while they drive home. 

“I didn’t know her that well,” Rusty says. “And I thought you guys didn’t like each other.” 

“We started out poorly,” Sharon admits. “But things got better.” She also didn’t appreciate how hard Brenda’s job was until she had it. No cataloging the dead bodies of entire families, back in FID. 

“Are we really going to be roommates with her?” Rusty asks. Doesn’t sound opposed to it, more just shocked. Which is exactly how Sharon feels. 

“Let’s sleep on it,” Sharon decides. “Think about it for a few days.” 

The day they move into Brenda’s house, it’s hot with no wind. The moving company Sharon’s hired is running late by over an hour, and when Sharon finally pulls up at Brenda’s house, David Gabriel and Julio Sanchez are waiting on the front patio with Brenda, all of them drinking beer. 

“Let’s get this show on the road,” Gabriel says, clapping his hands together. Julio looks like he’s on his third or fourth beer, but he nods to Sharon with as big a smile as she’s ever seen on him, Brenda patting him affectionately on the back. 

“How can I help?” Brenda asks, while Sharon is supervising the movers. 

“Make good on your offer to kill my ex-husband,” Sharon says. She’s hot and sticky, her hair matted to the back of her neck, and she’s starting to have some serious doubts about all of this. 

“Well, I’d send Julio,” Brenda drawls, “but then you’d be short one detective and I’d be out a pile of bail money.” 

“Bail money for what?” Gabriel asks, carrying a box marked ‘fragile’. He hefts it from arm to arm, something within it shifting with a clank, and Sharon grimaces. 

“Me killin’ you if you break any of Sharon’s things,” Brenda says, hands on her hips. “Now get a move on. You owe an hour of labor for all that beer and pizza.” 

It takes a week to get everything properly unpacked because Sharon catches a double homicide, two days in. It’s a gruesome case, more gruesome than usual, so she shoos Rusty out of the murder room, telling him to go back to the house. They finally close it, the husband of one of the victim’s confessing, and Sharon comes home to find Rusty on the couch with Brenda, both of them eating takeout.

“There’s Chinese food,” Brenda says, shoveling rice into her mouth with a pair of chopsticks. She’s much better with chopsticks than Sharon is, Sharon watching her pick up a single grain of rice that’s fallen into her lap, and Sharon pauses here, deciding what she’s even supposed to do with this information. 

“This place makes way better eggrolls than the place we go,” Rusty says. Seems perfectly content to sit next to Brenda and watch television. 

It isn’t a bad thing - it’s quite good actually. Sharon had worried that this would be too awkward for Rusty, but in all honesty she’s much more awkward for her. It’s strange to come home, after being up for twenty-six hours, and find Brenda sitting at the dining table, eating her breakfast and reading the paper. Not that she’s complaining about Brenda offering to pick up dry cleaning or leaving her a plate of dinner in the fridge. She just thought their lives would be more… separate. 

It’s two months before Sharon has her first fight with Rusty under a new roof. They don’t argue much, not anymore, so Sharon goes to work feeling raw and jangled after Rusty gets upset that their Saturday plans are being ruined by a murder. She comes home to a silent house that night, everyone’s cars parked in the driveway. She walks around to the back and looks out the sliding glass window to the pool, Rusty and Brenda sitting out there together, their legs dangling in the water. Sharon can only see them in profile, but their heads are bent close together and Brenda is doing most of the talking, Rusty’s body language looking deflated rather than angry now. 

Sharon doesn’t know what they talk about, but Rusty comes in a few minutes later and hugs Sharon. He doesn’t apologize, not exactly, though he asks her about her day and she admits that it was very hard. A long, trying day. He hugs again before he goes off to bed, murmuring, “love you, Sharon” as he shuffles away. 

“Oh, you’re home,” Brenda says, coming into the kitchen. Sharon’s in the middle of pouring herself a glass of wine when Brenda comes in, her jeans rolled up to her calves but still wet, where the water splashed them. “There’s some dinner if you want it.”

“I don’t think I can eat,” Sharon admits. 

“Yeah,” Brenda sighs. “I know how that goes.” 

Brenda picked up some of the cookies Sharon likes from Whole Foods. Sharon really tries to watch her sugar, but these are a weakness, and Brenda pushes the package toward her now. 

“Will you sit with me?’ Sharon asks, when Brenda starts to mosey away.

“Sure,” Brenda says. She sounds maybe the tiniest bit surprised. 

“I will never get used to dead kids,” Sharon says, after finishing her second cookie. They’re outside by the pool, the smell of chlorine and jasmine cocooning them. 

“No,” Brenda says. “You won’t.” 

There wasn’t one today, they found him alive in a storage locker, but Sharon had carried around a tight knot of anxiety and nausea in her stomach from the moment they found his mother dead. Sykes had called to tell her that the boy was fine except for some bruising, and Sharon had walked calmly to the women’s room, promptly throwing up the three cups of coffee that had been both breakfast and lunch.

She wants to ask Brenda what she said to Rusty, wants to thank her, but she’s so tired and demoralized. Even the wins in this job sometimes feel like losses. 

“Do you have a good therapist?” Brenda asks, surprising her. 

“I’ve gone to one a few times,” Sharon hedges. “When it was required in the line of duty.” 

“It helps,” Brenda says. “I did it too late, after I left the job. I think it would have helped even more, back when I was still workin’ as a cop.” 

It’s an incredibly gentle suggestion, and Sharon takes it for what it is. Tells the part of herself that’s prickling up now to stand down, because Brenda is admitting her own mistake here, and if that doesn’t speak to the power of therapy, Sharon doesn’t know what else could. 

Six months into living together, Brenda’s father gets sick and she flies to Atlanta for three weeks. The house is weird and wrong without her, Rusty a little more sullen when Sharon comes home late and tired, no dinner waiting for her in the fridge. 

Clay Johnson recovers from his bout of pneumonia, and Brenda texts Sharon that she’s flying back in on Saturday morning. Rusty gets the text too, Sharon watching him smile down at his phone, texting away to Brenda as he leans on the kitchen counter. 

It isn’t hard to get Brenda’s flight information without asking her directly, one of the many perks of being a cop. Sharon throws on a pair of jeans and pours some coffee into a travel mug. Tells Rusty, “come on, let’s go get our girl.” 

Brenda looks absolutely exhausted when they find her in baggage claim, her hair flat and lifeless, the skin under her eyes bruised a deep purple. Something sparks back to life inside of Sharon when Brenda sees them, her face transforming into a huge, genuine smile. 

“Y’all didn’t have to come all the way out here,” Brenda says, hugging Rusty. He hugs Brenda as much as he hugs Sharon now, which is a lot for him, and Sharon thinks it’s because Brenda wisely lets him initiate physical affection. Though not this time. 

“Sharon wanted to surprise you,” Rusty says, still being crushed by Brenda’s bony arms. 

“Oh did she,” Brenda says, releasing him. “Captain Raydor was always excellent at catchin’ me with my guard down.” 

The joke is completely without venom, and Sharon laughs out loud, Brenda pulling her into a hug now. 

“I missed y’all,” Brenda admits, Sharon’s arms wrapped around her, and it takes a moment for Sharon to find her voice. 

“Well, I’m glad to have my best friend back,” Sharon finally says, Brenda looking pleased as punch as they walk to the car. 

It’s another year before they start having sex, and that particular plot twist is so jarring to Sharon that she sits up in bed at night, thinking about what all this means. Is she gay now? A lesbian? Bisexual? 

She only worries about it when she’s not with Brenda, because as soon they’re in visual range of each other, all rational thought leaves her, like she’s seventeen and full of hormones. It’s something that strikes Sharon as ironic, because she was actually a very repressed teenager. 

“You’ve had sex with women before?” Sharon pants, coming down from her second orgasm. Sharon had thought at first that she was just easy because it's been years since someone took her nipple in their mouth or traced a finger over her damp panties. She’d been on that road with Andy Flynn, maybe, but they’d never even kissed and then she’d moved into Brenda’s house and everything sort of shifted. 

Sharon looks down her flushed body, to where Brenda’s still propped between her legs, her chin shiny and wet, and she knows now that no one is this good at cunnilingus from merely thinking about it in their head. 

“You haven’t?” Brenda asks, alarmed. It could be a compliment, flattering even, but this doesn’t occur to Sharon here. “I mean- I just assumed-” But Brenda doesn’t finish the sentence and Sharon doesn’t know whether she actually wants to hear the rest. 

“You just assumed what?” Sharon asks later. She’s had two fingers in Brenda forever, Brenda mewling and crying while Sharon kept up a slow, relentless pace, but eventually Sharon’s wrist needed a break, Brenda making a bereft sound when Sharon finally withdrew her hand. 

“Well we disliked each other so much at first,” Brenda says. “Even back then, I knew part of it was lust.”

Sharon thinks about this quietly for a few minutes, until her brain short circuits. 

“Maybe it woulda been better for LAPD relations if I’d given in back then and shoved up your skirt in my office,” Brenda says now. She’s lost the sated look like had, her wide mouth twisting in a feral smile that makes Sharon’s stomach flip. “You probably woulda liked havin’ the Deputy Chief on her knees for you.” 

Neither of them like the idea of getting married again, not really, but Brenda worries about taking care of Sharon if something happens to her. Sharon is older than her, but the house is in Brenda’s name. It’s halfway paid off now, all that consulting money going to the principal, and when Sharon learns this, she belatedly realizes that their living arrangement was never about money. Brenda was just lonely and she thought maybe Sharon was a little lonely too. 

“I’m not wearing a white dress,” Sharon says. “I’m sixty-two.” 

“No one has to know,” Brenda promises. “We can do it at the courthouse and go right back to work.”

But of course, it’s Sharon who starts telling people, pinning Brenda down for a firm date, so she can start making calls to a caterer. 

“Congratulations,” Andrea Hobbes says, hugging Sharon. She isn’t the first one at work to know, but she’s the first one to grab Sharon’s hand and stare at her ring. “That is some rock,” she crows, and Sharon beams. 

“I told her it was too much,” Sharon lies. It is a little ostentatious for Sharon’s usual taste, but her actual reaction was to press her mouth to Brenda’s clit, keeping it there until Brenda screamed like a banshee and tore at Sharon’s hair. 

“Not at all,” Andrea smiles here. “I think it’s just right.”

Sharon thinks so, too.

. . .


End file.
